Sunday, June 06, 2010

Escaping the Hotel California

The study...confirmed projections that a steadily growing Hispanic population will surpass whites as the state's largest racial demographic in 2016. Hispanics are expected to become a majority of all Californians in 2042, Heim said. _

The overall population of California has grown, but the European-derived population of California is making way for the new majority-minority -- Mexicans and other Hispanics.

California's white population has declined since 2000 at an unprecedented rate, hastening the day when Hispanics will be the state's largest population group, according to newly released state figures.

There were half a million fewer whites in California in 2008 than in 2000, a period when the state's overall population grew by 4 million to 38.1 million, according to a study released Thursday by the state Department of Finance.

By 2008, whites made up 40 percent of Californians, down from 47 percent at the turn of the century. In 2000, Hispanics comprised 32 percent of the population; that number grew to 37 percent in 2008.

Analysts said the decline can be attributed to two main causes - a natural population decrease as Baby Boomers enter their later years and die at a faster rate than younger whites have children, and a migration from California since 2001 among whites who sought affordable housing as real estate costs soared.

...Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, said white women in recent decades have tended to pursue higher-education degrees and stay in the workplace, leading them to have fewer children. The white population is now "below the replacement" level, Johnson said. "They're simply not replacing themselves."

The median age among California's whites is 44, while the median age for the Hispanic population is 28, according to the study.

Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said the study also reflected how skyrocketing real estate prices pushed workers from California during the housing bubble from 2005 through 2007.

..."California is no longer attracting large numbers of people from other states," Johnson said. "And a lot of those who did come to California from other states were white, reflecting the ethnic composition of the country as a whole.

"Now," he said, "that flow has dried up."

The decline among whites and increase in other groups in California is a long-standing trend, Johnson said.

Faster -- and more ominous, when you consider the economic output of the different groups, and levels of crime, poverty, illegitimacy, gang violence, school drop-out rates, and other variables determining the relative wealth and stability of a populace.

It is a very good trend for the California Democratic Party political machine. Not so good for the productivity of the state, or for the soundness of the underlying state infrastructure.